


Killing Kindness

by teaspice



Category: Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: genderbent, girl!Barsad, girl!Blake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 22:28:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/753795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaspice/pseuds/teaspice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Johanna,” she said quietly, intensely. “I have no desire to hurt you. I promise you that.”</p><p>(An AU where Blake and Barsad are female and in love and very good at hurting each other.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Killing Kindness

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr: A drabble for relevantlyirreverent/Menirva, because she suggested genderbent Barsad/Blake and my brain spontaneously combusted from the fucking hotness. This plotbunny is all hers - I’m just borrowing it for reasons. <3

  
The thing is, when she sees the woman standing next to Bane outside of Blackgate Penitentiary she thinks she’s hallucinating. That can’t be Barsad. The TV is crappy quality; the image is grainy. And Barsad left Gotham (left her) weeks ago. She’s got no reason to be standing at Bane’s right hand, rifle slung over her shoulder and her hair all loose around her, streaming in the wind like a dark flag.  
  
  
Commissioner Gordon says something as Johanna kneels down and presses her fingers to the screen, but Johanna’s not listening. She’s staring at that face, that familiar face with those hollowed cheekbones and pale eyes and that beautiful mouth that always seems to be curved into a half-smile. Her heart hurts. Feels like it’s breaking all over again.  
  
  
That’s Barsad, alright.  
  
  
When Barsad left she said her family needed her. She said she wasn’t going to come back. She packed away all the clothes she’d kept in Johanna’s closet; tucked away the gun she usually kept on the dresser by her side of the bed. She even took all their shared photographs out of their frames, and wasn’t that just a kick in teeth? It was like she wanted to erase herself out of Johanna’s life. Like she wanted to erase the relationship they’d shared, all that easy, bone-deep intimacy, all those mornings when Johanna woke with Barsad watching her with soft eyes, all the times they’d fucked _hard_ like they hated each other and still fallen asleep tangled in each other’s arms.  
  
  
“That’s it?” demanded Johanna. Voice shaky, her breath twisting up inside of her. “Your family need you - so you’re just going to _go_?”  
  
  
“My sister is sick,” Barsad said flatly. She refused to look at Johanna. She’d refused all evening, ever since Johanna got home from the grocery store and found her methodically packing their shared life away into a duffel bag. “I have no choice.”  
  
  
“You told me once that you’re an only child,” said Johanna.  
  
  
Johanna still remembers - Barsad looked at her then, right before she zipped the bag shut, right before she walked out of Johanna’s life like the fact Johanna had fallen so deep in love with her she didn’t know how the hell to climb back out didn’t matter at all. Her eyes were unreadable and for once she wasn’t smiling.  
  
  
She looked beautiful.  
  
  
“Johanna,” she said quietly, intensely. “I have no desire to hurt you. I promise you that.”  
  
  
“Yeah, fuck you too,” Johanna said, feeling hot tears sting at her eyes. She gritted her teeth and held them back. When Barsad was gone, she’d let herself rage. Maybe break her fist against the wall, who the fuck knew. But not yet. “You think your family wouldn’t like me or something?”  
  
  
“No,” said Barsad. A ghost of her smile. Eyes deadly calm. “I think you wouldn’t like them.”  
  
  
Johanna peels her fingers away from the TV screen.  
  
  
 _You bitch_ , she thinks numbly. If this was the family she’d left Johanna for, if she’d left Johanna just to come back and destroy everything she loves, that Barsad knows she loves -  
  
  
Johanna can’t stand it.  
  
  
Gordon is kneeling beside her now, his hand on her shoulder, his voice firm in her ear. He’s saying her name over and over again, like he’s been speaking to her for a while without getting a response. _Officer Blake. Officer. Johanna. Johanna. You need to snap out of it. Meet my eyes, that’s it -_  
  
  
Johanna looks at him. She’s breathing hard, harder than she should be. Gordon looks worried, but he lets go of her when she shrugs off his hand. She stands and walks over to the window.  
  
  
“Are you alright?” he asks.  
  
  
Her breathing is starting to settle. She nods.  
  
  
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m fine. It’s just - been a bad day.”  
  
  
“Bad for all of us,” Gordon agrees. He doesn’t believe her, that’s clear. But at least he’s willing to humour her.  
  
  
Johanna gives a murmur of agreement and keeps her eyes fixed on the window. Outside the streets are empty. Johanna stares out at them, stares right through them. She wonders if Barsad knows where she is. If she’s laughing over how she tricked Johanna into loving her, into trusting her, only to burn the heart right out of her.  
  
  
 _I’m going to find you sweetheart,_ thinks Johanna. _And I’m going to kill you myself. Even if it’s the last damn thing I do._  
  
  
 _I promise you that._


End file.
